I couldn't find any thing else like this on dhammawheel, but I have seen it on other forums, so I decided to start a place for members to post bits of original poetry or prose. I put it in the lounge due to the fact that not all poems may necessarily be dhamma related, but mods please move this wherever most appropriate.

I'd like to start with one that's a bit inspired by samsara.
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"Circles"

Floating lights up in the night,
a Heaven filled with Earth's delights.
We dine and die in aging fields,
dreams lit dim by sunshine.

The only sight one ever sees
a straight path through the rocks and trees
running still inside the wheel
the dancing thoughts of revelry.

Pulled into the lion's den
of mortal fears and mortal men
this beautiful impermanence
is just about to end.
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Thanks for posting! I hope more people have things they have written, I'd love to read them.

Another one:
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Clouds part
screaming
into
painted frames
the
beggars veins
slowly losing
their grip with reality
in the
act of the
brush leaving the
canvas madly
draped over the eyes
masquerading as
colors
We spend our nights as actors
pretending to be others
all these
childish games inside raindrops falling
crawling onto embers
to silence the calling
of meeting the ground and preparing to scatter
a mess in a world where
humans don't matter.
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In the window of the cafe
I see
haunting eyes
as deep as the deepest ocean
staring back at me.
Their piercing gaze
unfolding into tomorrow,
reflecting back
beginningless time.
Portals revealing bits and pieces,
glimpses and hopes,
of things yet to come,
that have already happened before.
Peepholes into the tragic reality
of my existential ouroboros.
Drifting
ceaselessly,
like a wayward vessel
hoping to find the safety of the other shore,
I sail down the river of forgetfulness
and crash
over and over again
into the rocky shores of beauty:
the siren song of desire
forever leading me
astray.

(This haiku was inspired by a picture of Ajahn Thanissaro and Phra Mike I took the last time they were in Portland. The picture is apparently too big to upload here, but you can check it out here if so inclined.)

Sitting at Bare Bones
alone, in the brisk, winter afternoon.
Coffee to my right,
Dostoyevsky lurking around somewhere in my bag
resting comfortably in the other chair.
Ginger makes an occasional appearance from the back,
chatting up the customers
and intimidating them
with her tattoos and handsome features.
Short, black hair
matching her black, button-up shirt.
Less goth and more post-punk culinary, if you can imagine that.
Thoughts turn to daggers
like the tattoos on her arm,
piercing through the melancholy of the moment
and into the unknown future.
Hope and fear, love and loss;
life is such a holy and tragic thing.
Souls forming and taking shape,
like Fiddler Crab larvae
carried upon the currents of choices,
mistakes,
and circumstances beyond their control.
Washed far out to sea
to sink or swim,
or be eaten;
the lucky ones being washed back into shore.
Sometimes I feel like a leaf
caught in the wake
of souls bigger and more important than I.
I rise and fall
and am pushed aside by their passing.
Always in a hurry
with no place to go.
But at least they'll get there on time.

Beneath his brow, a boney mantle,
behind which hid his pride.
But when his mind did turn within,
from this it could not hide:
That where it had expected wealth
it found instead that pride had lied;
amassed were not the gems of virtue,
but many panes of polished glass.
And not having any wealth to take,
he now lies beneath the grass.

The Buddha Gautama said that there are one thousand and one buddhas that will come into our world during the superior aeon. Among those, three buddhas have already come, so Gautama Buddha is the fourth. The next, or the fifth buddha, is known as Maitreya in Sanskrit, which means “loving-kindness.” Buddha Gautama spoke a lot about this future buddha in the Mahayana Maitreya Sutra. He said that Maitreya would realize buddhahood solely through the practice of loving-kindness.

******

Loving-kindness comes from the heart
Nobody forces it to flow
Just like rain from heaven
Pretty much like beautiful white snow

Hatred is like poison
Anger ruins your mind
If you collect hatred and anger
You'll be alone when you die